Most cigar companies name a release after family, a farm, or a year that mattered. Platinum Nova named this one after a planet no one will ever visit, TRAPPIST-1g, an exoplanet roughly 40 light-years from the chair you will smoke it in. That is a lot of ambition to print on a box lid, and the cigar inside has to earn it.
The Platinum Nova Trappist 1G is a 7¼×54 torpedo, a cigar with a tapered, pointed head, and it is the only size the line has ever come in. It wears a dark Ecuadorian Habano 2000 Oscuro wrapper over Dominican and Pennsylvania Broadleaf tobaccos, rolls out of the family’s own Terranova factory in Tamboril, Dominican Republic, and debuted in July 2023 at $18.50 a stick in ten-count octagonal boxes. It also spends a good part of the year sold out.
- Platinum Nova Trappist 1G, a 7¼×54 single-vitola torpedo in Ecuadorian Habano 2000 Oscuro over Dominican and Pennsylvania Broadleaf tobaccos. Rolled at the family-owned Terranova factory in Tamboril, Dominican Republic, boxed in 10s, $18.50 list.
- Coffee with cream, cedar, butterscotch, and baking spice over a nougat sweetness, closing on espresso, savory cream, and leather. Medium to full, with the strength climbing hard in the final third across roughly two hours.
- BLC Rating: 87/100 and worth a five-pack. A serious, slow-burning special-occasion torpedo named for an exoplanet, dedicated to a NASA scientist, and genuinely hard to keep in stock.
FROM THE PORCH
This one starts at an event, where I got to share a Platinum Nova Trappist with the person behind it: Leonor Abzaradel, Leo, the CEO of Nova Cigars. Dynamic, inspirational women are still far too rare in this industry, and Leo is the real thing. She took the brand over in 2019, and by 2023 they were rolling in their own factory in Tamboril. I learned a lot about the brand that day, the cigar was fantastic, and I did the only sensible thing: brought a bunch home.
Home, it turned out, was not ready for a cigar named after an exoplanet. The snow was gone but the lake was still frozen, so I cranked up the heater and Dallas came out anyway, he enjoyed just being outside, I enjoyed the cigar, and between the two of us that is a full quorum. Dallas approved. Fair warning though: I am counting the days until better weather, because this one has earned a warm-evening rematch. My notes are below.
Most cigar companies name a release after family, a farm, or a year that mattered. Platinum Nova named this one after a planet no one will ever visit, TRAPPIST-1g, an exoplanet roughly 40 light-years from the chair you will smoke it in. That is a lot of ambition to print on a box lid, and the cigar inside has to earn it.
The Platinum Nova Trappist 1G is a 7¼×54 torpedo, a cigar with a tapered, pointed head, and it is the only size the line has ever come in. It wears a dark Ecuadorian Habano 2000 Oscuro wrapper over Dominican and Pennsylvania Broadleaf tobaccos, rolls out of the family’s own Terranova factory in Tamboril, Dominican Republic, and debuted in July 2023 at $18.50 a stick in ten-count octagonal boxes. It also spends a good part of the year sold out.
- Platinum Nova Trappist 1G, a 7¼×54 single-vitola torpedo in Ecuadorian Habano 2000 Oscuro over Dominican and Pennsylvania Broadleaf tobaccos. Rolled at the family-owned Terranova factory in Tamboril, Dominican Republic, boxed in 10s, $18.50 list.
- Coffee with cream, cedar, butterscotch, and baking spice over a nougat sweetness, closing on espresso, savory cream, and leather. Medium to full, with the strength climbing hard in the final third across roughly two hours.
- BLC Rating: 87/100 and worth a five-pack. A serious, slow-burning special-occasion torpedo named for an exoplanet, dedicated to a NASA scientist, and genuinely hard to keep in stock.
FROM THE PORCH
This one starts at an event, where I got to share a Platinum Nova Trappist with the person behind it: Leonor Abzaradel, Leo, the CEO of Nova Cigars. Dynamic, inspirational women are still far too rare in this industry, and Leo is the real thing. She took the brand over in 2019, and by 2023 they were rolling in their own factory in Tamboril. I learned a lot about the brand that day, the cigar was fantastic, and I did the only sensible thing: brought a bunch home.
Home, it turned out, was not ready for a cigar named after an exoplanet. The snow was gone but the lake was still frozen, so I cranked up the heater and Dallas came out anyway, he enjoyed just being outside, I enjoyed the cigar, and between the two of us that is a full quorum. Dallas approved. Fair warning though: I am counting the days until better weather, because this one has earned a warm-evening rematch. My notes are below.
BEHIND THE BLEND
There is no rockstar blender’s name on the Trappist 1G, and that is the story. Chairman Dr. Amer Rustom, whose family office owns Platinum Nova, built the aquamarine Terranova factory in Tamboril, Dominican Republic so nobody else’s hands would touch his tobacco, and the blend came from the house team inside it. The space theme arrived through an unlikely muse, Dr. Scott Bolton, the NASA physicist who founded the Juno mission and a personal friend of Rustom, who introduced the family to the TRAPPIST-1 system, every box lid carries a printed dedication to him. CEO Leonor “Leo” Abzaradel, who fell for cigars smoking alongside her father, is the one who carried it to market.
BLC BLEND BREAKDOWN
BLEND SPECS
One honest note on the blend. The 2023 launch specs listed a Dominican binder under Pennsylvania Broadleaf filler, while the company’s current listing flips the two. Rather than guess, the fair way to say it is this: an Ecuadorian Habano 2000 Oscuro wrapper over Dominican and Pennsylvania Broadleaf tobaccos. The smoke does not care which job title each leaf holds, and neither should you.
ONE SIZE ONLY
| VITOLA | SIZE | FORMAT |
|---|---|---|
| Torpedo, reviewed | 7¼ × 54 | Figurado, tapered head |
There is no Trappist 1G Toro, and there never was. The line launched as one vitola and stayed that way, a 7¼×54 torpedo, which makes it a figurado, the family name for any cigar that is not a straight-sided cylinder. The company teased future sizes at launch, nothing has followed yet. That is the thing about single-vitola lines, the blend gets one shape and the shape gets all the attention.
THE COLD DRAW
The wrapper is a deep chocolate brown, near-seamless, with the rounded taper easing into a soft point. Habano 2000 is a Cuban-seed hybrid bred for wrapper leaf in the 1990s, and oscuro simply means it is fermented to the darkest shade on the shelf, this one earns the word. Off the foot you get rich barnyard and earth, the sweet hay-and-stable smell every farm kid knows, with dark coffee sitting behind it. A shallow clip off the point opens a smooth, even draw, and the cold pull runs coffee with cream and a little cedar. The stick is heavy in the hand, packed dense from foot to tip.
BLC CIGAR PROFILE
Burn: steady and even across two-plus hours, slate-gray ash, solid if a little flaky at the drops.
Draw: smooth off a shallow clip, with room to open it further as the taper widens.
Here is the shape of it: the Trappist 1G opens rustic, turns sweet through the middle, and finishes strong and savory, this is a cigar that actually goes somewhere over its two hours. Barnyard and coffee up front. Florals, nuts, and butterscotch in the middle. Espresso, caramel, cream, and leather at the end, with the nicotine saving its real argument for last. The transitions are the point, plenty of cigars this size just fill the time, this one spends it.
THE FIRST THIRD
The opening inch is the most rustic stretch of the cigar. Barnyard and damp earth lead, then coffee with cream settles in as the core, smooth and rounded instead of bitter. The retrohale, pushing a little smoke out through the nose, is where the cedar lives, clean and woody with a hearty pepper hum underneath it. Strength sits at an honest medium here, and the torpedo’s taper focuses the smoke a little more with every quarter inch.
THE SECOND THIRD
The middle is where this cigar starts earning the price tag. The barnyard fades and something unexpected takes its place, fragrant floral and nutty tones with a butterscotch sweetness riding the finish of every puff. Deeper into the stretch the dessert turns darker, baking spices and espresso move in, and the smoke goes rich without ever going sugary. This is the stretch you will remember, it is also a fair explanation for why the boxes keep selling out.
THE FINAL THIRD
The last stretch turns the lights down. Coffee and caramel run together over a nougat sweetness, then the blend goes savory, cream and leather taking over as the sweet notes thin out. The nicotine, polite for the first ninety minutes, climbs noticeably here, so finish this one on a full stomach and take it slow. The whole smoke runs right around two hours and ten minutes, and the strength at the end is a different animal than the start. It begins as an afternoon cigar. It ends as a nightcap.
WHAT IT COSTS
List price is $18.50 a stick, $185 for the ten-count octagonal box, and that is when you can find one. Availability is the real catch with this cigar, production is small and boxes sell through fast. Street prices float because of it, figure boxes anywhere from roughly $175 to $240 and singles from $18 to $24 depending on where and when you catch one. That is premium money, no way around it. For two-plus hours of smoke with real transitions, the math is fairer than the sticker suggests.
OVERALL RATING
BLC OVERALL RATING
An 87 for the first score this cigar has ever worn: a boutique torpedo that backs its story up. The construction holds for over two hours, the flavor actually travels, rustic to sweet to savory, and the late surge of strength gives it a real ending instead of a fade-out. At $18.50 it is not an everyday smoke for most of us, it is a cigar you set an evening aside for. Scarcity stings more than the price here, plan ahead for both.
WHO GRABS THIS CIGAR
This is a cigar for the experienced smoker with a free evening and a full stomach. It rewards attention, the transitions are the whole show, and it punishes a rushed pace with more nicotine than a casual smoker wants at the end. Space nerds get a bonus, the box lid carries a printed orbit map of the TRAPPIST-1 system and a dedication worth reading before you light anything.
Skip it if you are new to cigars, short on time, or shopping on price, it fails all three tests on purpose. Hunt one down if you want a torpedo with a genuine arc and a story you will end up retelling. Some cigars are for the rotation. This one is for the calendar.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Common questions about the Platinum Nova Trappist 1G Torpedo 7¼×54.
